118 



VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



Hard Rush Juncu 



great excellence and variety. To make the best of 

 their mats, the Japanese employ the juncus effusus, 

 which is plaited very closely, and the interstices are 

 afterwards filled up with rice-straw. 



These mats, which are at once the carpets and the 

 only beds ever used by the Japanese, are soft, elastic, 

 and often three or four inches thick. That the juncus 

 of which they are chiefly composed may be of better 

 quality, and grow to a greater height, it is carefully 

 cultivated in certain low watery places; and in order 

 that the mats may be of a whitish rather than of a 



